Once Upon a Time

Discover the historic, fairy tale–worthy wonders of St. Petersburg

By Becca Hensley

Published: December 31, 2013

Photo from Shutterstock

Guests booking a room for a certain date last November at the regally redone Four Seasons Hotel Lion Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, got something unexpected—an invitation to the hotel’s long-awaited grand opening fête. “Bring an evening gown,” they told one woman from the Midwest. “It will be an event you’ll never forget.” And, indeed, with much pomp and circumstance, the hotel officially reclaimed its imperial past with a soiree that brought celebrities, politicians and other high rollers to an extravaganza worthy of Catherine the Great.

The night of the party, I descended the stairs from my room donning a little black dress to discover the marbled lobby transformed. Staff, dressed in traditional Russian costumes, balanced trays brimming with flutes of Champagne and de rigueur vodka shots. Some offered plates of bread, dotted with coarse chunks of salt, a time-honored custom of welcome. Outside, horse-drawn buggies flanked the front doors, and from them elegantly clad people emerged to enter the fairytale event. In one room, a kaleidoscopic disco ball cast prisms of rainbow light over the crowd, and a raucous dance band played.

Two of the hotel’s restaurants, the Italian-themed Percorso and Asian–inspired Sintoho, served samples from their menus. Downstairs, in a ballroom, chefs dished out three kinds of caviar. Mounds of oysters awaited opening, while immense ice sculptures, some shaped like the hotel’s namesake lion statues, paid homage to the iconic Winter Palace nearby.
But perhaps the highpoint of the evening came with the call to step outside. There, chilled by an icy wind, we received matching blankets to warm us. Huddled together, we stared into the night above St. Issac’s Cathedral’s golden dome. As grand finale fireworks exploded across the sky, I heard the sounds of awe in a plethora of languages.

As this Four Seasons takes cues from the past to institute St. Petersburg’s newest contemporary hotel, the city itself relies on its history to move forward into the future. Once a swampland, thick with Finnish pines, St. Petersburg was the vision of its forward-thinking ruler, Peter the Great. He fashioned a city like Venice, awash with canals. To adorn it, he brought in the height of fashion from Europe—Baroque buildings, palaces and elaborate churches—ensuring that the city dominated the global buzz.

Inspired by Peter, future empress Catherine the Great would take his rendition up a notch. The world-renowned Hermitage Museum, once a residence and now the receptacle for one of the largest art collections on earth, exemplifies her efforts. She turned St. Petersburg into Russia’s intellectual and cultural capital. One night, I have an after-hours tour of the Hermitage. It’s a magical thing to parade through its richly embellished rooms with a guide. Normally, in a museum like this, one fights the crowds to ogle a painting you’ve wanted to see all your life. To be nearly alone with a masterwork, ensconced in a palace, is surely a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

And I feel equally moved the next day when I discover the Erarta Museum across the river. The largest non-government–owned contemporary art museum in Russia, this collection displays both emerging and long-
established artists, including some that kept their creative spirit alive during Soviet rule. Erarta celebrates the philosophy that everyone has an inner artist. To prove that, they have created unique hands-on exhibits, such as immersion galleries, meant to elicit deep-seated sensations. In one such space, surrounded by legions of hanging baubles, I feel the glitz of St. Petersburg’s royal past, interpreted with 21st-century elan. Peter the Great would be proud.